Country life
Driving ambition
Leanda de Lisle
Friends who arrived for the weekend in people carriers would refer to them fondly as 'the flower van' and I'd smile, as if we were discussing a hideous but blameless child. Recently, however, Peter became seized by a longing for one of these machines and persuaded me to go and look at the Mercedes version. He knows I have a soft spot for Mercedes which dates back to our first estate car. It was boxy, blue and had 100,000 miles on the clock. It had always annoyed me that a very ordinary car costs the same as a very nice picture and has the temerity to lose value. Mercedes at least used to last for ever. Ours did sterling work carrying half a ton of baby-support equipment on our Christmas progresses from grandparents to grandparents.
But things started to go wrong when we went a cliche too far and bought a mascot from Swaine Adeney. It was a British white boar, just like the pigs we had at home. Unfortunately, after it had been screwed onto the bonnet, I realised we would now be facing a large pair of silver testicles every time we went for a drive. Worse, poor Peter was stoned whenever he drove through the Muslim quarter of Leicester. When the exhaust pipe fell off the car on the motorway, Peter decided he had had enough. The Mercedes was sold and the mascot hidden away. As the newer, sleeker Mercedes had introduced complex elec- tronics at the expense of its reputation for longevity, we bought a second-hand Ford Mondeo estate.
I know that Labour ministers maintain that they are far too grand to drive Mon- deos, but I always thought ours smart as well as practical. There was plenty of room for two school trunks, and its dark-green paintwork wore mud well — the only draw- back being that you had to put your hand on all that filth to close the boot. However, by last week the children were as keen as their father to see the back of it. When the man from Mercedes offered to take it in part exchange, they cheered, saying the Mondeo stank because they'd all been sick in it several times. I was more circumspect. The estate car might or might not stink, but it did its job and that Mercedes was no country-people carrier.
Awe-struck parents from the boys' prep school had told me the Mercedes has a fridge. It does. The trouble is it doesn't have room for anything else. The car looks like a burglar's transit van, but even with- out half the seats, there's no space for a dog or a trunk or even a fully reclined wellington boot. I rejected it.
But Peter and the children got their way in the end over a new car. We are poised to drive up to Scotland in a brand new Chrysler Voyager. It can take three chil- dren, drink, rods, suitcases and boots, but I suspect its popularity with country parents is, more than anything, based on a desire for change. Not that I don't understand that. When we get home, I'm going to trade in my diesel hatchback for a nice two- seater sports car. I hope Peter won't mind.
`You've not taken that dog for a walk since you started watching all these animal-care programmes!'
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